Volcanoes

In the 20th Century, there were 35 volcanic eruptions on average over the entire year; this year, there are 38 volcanoes in an active state of eruptionright now! This is non-trivial. Mitch Battros posted this today:

A new study in the April 22 edition of the journal ‘Science’, reveals that volcanic activity associated with the plate-tectonic movement of continents may be responsible for climatic shifts from hot to cold throughout much of Earth’s history. The study, led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin Jackson School of Geosciences, addresses why Earth has fluctuated from periods when the planet was covered in ice to times when polar regions were ice-free…

…cooling periods tended to correlate with the assembly of Earth’s supercontinents, which was a time of diminished continental volcanism, Horton said. The warming periods correlated with continental breakup, a time of enhanced continental volcanism.

So enhanced volcanism leads not only to the melting of the icecaps and thus strongly rising sea levels–sea levels would rise over 200 feet if the icecaps melted–it is also “correlated with continental breakup.“In such a situation, one would expect a bigincrease in earthquakes, which is occurring, as demonstrated above.

More than 200 people suffered injuries and about 400 structures have been affected, said Uruguayan Sen. Guillermo Besozzi. Images from the city showed overturned cars piled on top of one other, shattered windows and decimated buildings…The National Institute of Meteorology has yet to determine the scale of the tornado. “There are businesses in the center of the city, completely destroyed. Schools, churches destroyed. This is something never seen before. This is something out of the normal for our country,” Besozzi said.

Sinkholes

Sinkholes are becoming so commonplace that they have been draining small lakes and ponds, and now they have drained three rivers in Mexico. The photo below shows the before-and-after of the Atoyac River:

Thundering Heard

Does this give you an idea of why this site is called Thundering Heard? Each heading in this post could have been shown as “Thundering Heard: Earthquakes” or “Thundering Heard: Volcanoes,” but that would have been annoying. Still, the idea is always there. There is thundering heard on the horizon across much of the energetic spectrum. Beyond earth changes, think about national politics, geopolitics, the state of the oceans, the financial system, health care, the legal system, the oil business, education, and so forth. All systems seem to be experiencing convulsions; many are being shaken to their core. We are now all accustomed to hearing words like deflation, decline, destruction, failure, and collapse in a variety of contexts.

This site tries to remind of some of these thunderings as food for thought.